Joan Chittister

[miriam_e]

What a remarkable woman she is. You will be hard pressed to find a sharper, more honest mind. She embodies great hope for us all. I can't even say I'm sorry she is religious (she is a Benedictine nun), because she and people like her may help religious people find their way out of the blindness that too commonly afflicts them. It would be good to not feel I have to stand against religion because of the damage it does. It would be wonderful to feel it doesn't threaten our survival as a species. Unfortunately that isn't so yet. It would be very cool if people like Joan Chittister could help make it so.

My only qualm is that she talked eloquently about how people of all spiritual persuasions can find common ground for tolerance and build upon a basic goodness in spiritualism, but as is so common in religious people she ignored the fact that they are surrounded by atheists and agnostics who are good and tolerant people without spiritualism. Sad that even one so brilliant as she ignores that.

One of the incredible insights she explained in the program was the second commandment, not to take the name of god in vain. I'd always felt this was a rather irrelevant commandment, but as she put it, it is central to making religion more tolerant and just. By making, for instance, homophobic pronouncements against gay people then religious people are taking their god's name in vain. They are assuming to speak for their god -- an incredibly arrogant thing to do.

She is filled with such illuminations. A very smart woman indeed.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/default.htm

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It is important to be a skeptic about everything, but don't be misled into using theoretical arguments to equate two positions that are practically speaking very different. Atheists are not theoretically equivalent to religious people. I know very many atheists (Australia is a much less religious country than USA), but off-hand I can only think of one who is a fundamentalist atheist. (I, and most other atheists who talk with him, consider his arguments slightly annoying.) On the other hand I know vast numbers of fundamentalist religious people.

Many religious people have incorrectly labelled me a fundamentalist atheist, but I would concede the existence of gods in an instant if there was any evidence for their existence. I've even written stories which assume the existence of one or more gods. Like the overwhelming bulk of atheists I dismiss the claims for a god as simply fairytales, but would be perfectly happy to accommodate any actual evidence.

You can't simply consider atheism as equivalent in some way to religion. The two are entirely different. One starts from a belief and justifies everything else with the belief as the starting point -- even for religious moderates. The other simply doesn't have the belief. Many have said to me that I believe in the non-existence of a god, but that isn't true. I almost don't care. If it would stop hurting us I'd leave it alone. The only reason I speak out about against religion is for social justice.

Religion is visiting great damage upon our societies and is currently involved in a desperate grasp for more power and control. Theocracy is an alarming threat to every thinking person on the planet. I consider it an annoyance to feel that I have to speak out. If it wasn't for this immediate danger I would consider religion simply a complete waste of time and effort and would be happy to leave people to their silly fairytales. But it has come to the point where it is too dangerous. Good atheists need to speak up and say "Religion is not the source of morality -- in fact it is the source of much that is bad."

apologist n A person who argues in defense or justification of another person or cause.

It is not just religious people themselves who argue that religion is good. Many non-religious people believe that religious belief is a good thing. Even my non-religious Mum (who I love) feels this way. Those people are correctly called apologists. It isn't a logical fallacy to mention them. It is a simple fact.

The fact that there are good people who are religious doesn't work as an argument that religion is not a social ill. It is like arguing that the flu is not a disease because some people survive fine. The only way to decide on such things is to look at the evidence rather than anecdote.

Do read the research I posted. I'm uploading an interview with the author of the article. If you find it a grind to read the article (it is a very dense article) then the interview might help. This research utterly demolishes the case for religion in the simplest way. It simply looks at the evidence for religion's claim of being a good thing for society. It is amazing that nobody has actually bothered to look before.
Phillip Adams interviews Gregory Paul 2005-10-04.mp3 (http://miriam-english.org/files/Phillip%20Adams%20interviews%20Gregory%20Paul%202005-10-04.mp3)

[idealistagain.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to clarify that I do intend to review the research you've sent me. My not having done so to this point is not due to a lack of interest or any desire to ignore your points; it is simply because of being tied up with other tasks that have real-world deadlines that have to take priority.

I wouldn't say that my intent in this discussion is to defend religion. I've even gone to great lengths to point out that I do agree with a great deal of your views. I simply feel that some things you say cross the line from legitimate argument into unjustified attacks. I am not trying to prove that religion is necessarily good, but rather countering your point that it is always bad.

But OK, I don't want to simply pick nits, so I'll even grant you for the moment that I'm accurately an apologist. Even so, I still feel that label is a fallacy in this context, because it is simply labelling other people without doing anything either to advance y our own position or to disprove any position held by someone else. Even if not a fallacy, I fail to see the usefulness of the term; at best, it seems irrelevant. At worst, its an unfair categorization because it places my views within a box ("apologist") that could easily lead to wrong conclusions, since, in reality, there is probably not very much similarity between my views and those of other apologists and a label itself says nothing about my individual viewpoint.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Okay. I was a little mystified at your disagreement with my use of the word "apologist". It wasn't actually pointed specifically at you, though you were included within its compass. Your reaction surprised me. Perhaps it has different connotations over there than it does here. That's why I checked the dictionary, to see if I was missing something. Perhaps it is something in the culture. Over there "atheist", from what I can ascertain, carries connotations of deceitfulness and amorality. Over here it just means someone who doesn't believe in a god. Over there perhaps apologist means more than the dictionary term would indicate. Perhaps it does here too. I'll have to ask around.

It was just a throwaway word. Here's why I included it:

I've been recently talking with friends who defend religious people's desire to believe nutty stuff if they want and to thrust it upon the rest of us. It had bothered me that this is part of why religion has such a grip. If people would resist being forced into pretending to pray at certain events, or would not accede to religious fervour in forcing children to attend scripture classes, or would speak out against religious statements that we are a religious nation, then we would have a better chance. We need to stand up for ourselves and say that we don't go along with childish fables.

My friends demurred, saying it was too hard and some even said that they felt it was good for some people to have a belief to cling to. This bewildered me. The evidence is that these beliefs are unhealthy. It smacked of an incredibly patronising attitude to say that these people are not doing any harm and that they shouldn't be jarred out of their comfortable delusion by revealing that we around them are largely atheist.

If all the atheists and agnostics stood up and said that it was stupid and they weren't going to just let religious people have their way all the time then we might actually be free of it. There would still be religious people, but we wouldn't have the nonsense constantly thust upon us anymore. They would know our position and hopefully would see theirs as less tenable. I don't believe religious people should be forced to hide their beliefs, but it annoys me that many atheists and agnostics willingly hide their own and make patronising excuses for religious people. ("They're so inferior they might crumble without their beliefs.")

That was what I meant when I mentioned apologists. My original point stands without including the word, but I don't feel it loses anything by adding it. The intention wasn't to label you, but to add an extra extent to the problem.

I'm sorry if you felt offended by it. That certainly wasn't what I wanted.

After all that, here it is again without the word:

...there are many [bad] things done in the name of religion... but it is not religion...

This is one of the things that mystifies. How can people possibly say that? Religious people bomb buildings, shoot doctors, wage religious wars, burn "witches", block truth and science, yet others say "Oh but those people aren't doing those things for religion!" Yet if you ask the people who do those dastardly things they unhesitatingly claim a religious purpose. Why do people excuse such behavior? It is because they can't face the truth that the evil really is religion itself. (They wonder, "How can something that feels so good be that evil?" I say, "Ask a junkie.")

See what I mean? People would excuse religion by saying that those who do those horrid things are not the face of true religion. Yet if you ask those hateful people themselves, they do indeed consider religion to be their direct motive. The problem is religion. In fact the most damning of all are moderates themselves. The only way they can be good and tolerant people is by actively disbelieving most of their own religion.